java -version and $JAVA_HOME display wrong information

Question

I have a RHEL 7 server. Installed java version is jdk1.8.0_151

# ls -l /usr/java total 0 drwxr-xr-x. 8 root root 255 Apr 24 14:10 jdk1.8.0_151 

I set JAVA_HOME location and added bin directory to PATH variable in /etc/profile

# grep JAVA_HOME /etc/profile export JAVA_HOME="/usr/java/jdk1.8.0_151/" export PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH 

Still java -version shows false information and echo $JAVA_HOME shows no output.

# java -version openjdk version "1.8.0_242" OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_242-b08) OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.242-b08, mixed mode) # # echo $JAVA_HOME # 

How can I resolve this?

Update

When executed the following commands java -version and echo $JAVA_HOME works for the user igwuser, but doesn't work when logged in as root.

export PATH=/usr/java/jdk1.8.0_151/bin:$PATH export JAVA_HOME="/usr/java/jdk1.8.0_151/" 

When logged in as root,

[igwuser@dep4 ~]$ sudo su [root@dep4 igwuser]# java -version bash: java: command not found... [root@dep4 igwuser]# echo $JAVA_HOME [root@dep4 igwuser]# 

Why it doesn't work when logged in as root?

Update 2

PATH variable resets when I log in and logout. That should be the issue.

[root@dep4 igwuser]# echo $PATH /sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin [root@dep4 igwuser]# [root@dep4 igwuser]# [root@dep4 igwuser]# export PATH=/usr/java/jdk1.8.0_151/bin:$PATH [root@dep4 igwuser]# echo $PATH /usr/java/jdk1.8.0_151/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin [root@dep4 igwuser]# [root@dep4 igwuser]# exit exit [igwuser@dep4 ~]$ sudo su [root@dep4 igwuser]# echo $PATH /sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin [root@dep4 igwuser]# 

Answer 1

I was editing the wrong file(/etc/profile) all that time. Adding following lines to /etc/bashrc resolved the issue.

export JAVA_HOME="/usr/java/jdk1.8.0_172-amd64/" export PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH 

Thanks

Update : Please refer the comment by @jsbillings below. creating a custom script in /etc/profile.d/ and adding above lines is the most recommended.

Answer 2

1. Each user has his own variable environment. Thus, it's normal that values of PATH and JAVA_HOME variables are different from one user (root) to another one (non-root user).

2. A persistent way to save environment variables :

   • Add your environment variable by editing ~/.bashrc file : vim ~/.bashrc

   • Load the changes you did in ~/.bashrc using : source ~/.bashrc